Dearest Friends: Today I will stand before an audience of thousands and deilver my TEDx talk titled: “When Someone You Love Dies, There Is No Such Thing As Moving On.” The talk is a message for everyone. Not just widowed people – everyone. It is about love and loss, and the way that we, as a society, mishandle the language and behaviors we…
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Writing From the Depths of my Heart~
My dearest love, my beloved husband. D. It’s 4 years since you and I drove to the ER at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs. It is now 4 years since you and I began our final Happily Homeless travels, travels that began on a sunny May day in NJ in 2009, as you got into the UHaul truck with the few of our belongings that we’d kept…
Bulldogs
Sometimes when you lose someone you hold on to every Tangible item you can. Joey was raised with bulldogs and it was his dream to breed his own dogs and show them. He was great at anything he did and his dogs were no exception. He created his own bloodline of beautiful healthy bulldogs. When he was alive he would tell me if anything happen to him…
Seaworthy
sea·wor·thy ˈsēˌwərT͟Hē/ adjective (of a vessel) in a good enough condition to sail on the sea. Sometimes, something unexpected happens, and it gives you a new look at something, or a new look at yourself maybe. Sometimes, everything just lines up in the way it is supposed to, so that the universe can deliver to you, exactly what it is that…
Getting my Footing. Not.
Groundhog Day. Do you ever feel that widowhood is like Groundhog Day? A wide and conflicting range of emotions exist in widowhood. As many as you can name, from A-Z, and many more that can’t be named, only felt. Emotions that veer wildly about in one’s mind and heart and body. For most of us, over time, the hardest ones seemingly…
Long Road Ahead
“The hardest walk you can make is alone, but it’s the walk that will make you stronger.” This is easier said than done. When you have a partner in life, someone who you know has your back no matter what. Someone who will shelter you during the storm. Someone who is willing to die for you before they let you suffer. Then all of a sudden you are…
Love. Only love.
When calls my heart To the distant past that is both yesterday and incalculably forever ago. When calls my heart To those feelings and emotions that seem so far distant And so deeply buried That they are unreachable. Unrememberable. Cherished. Loved. Nurtured. Secure. In Love. Joyous. Passionate. Spontaneous. Upbeat. What…
My Sister
One of the greatest gifts Joey ever gave me was his sister. She lived with us from the time we moved in together. And for six years after that. Her and her daughter were part of family. When they finally moved out because she got married it was very hard. It was like a part of our family left. She is not only my sister in law and best friend, she…
On the Other End of the Line
For the past few months, I’ve been on a different end of grief… in the ranks of those who are supporting another. Back in December, one of my closest girlfriends found out that her mom has throat cancer (never smokes a day in her life, mind you). Their holiday season was complicated by chemo treatments and all the sickness that comes along with…
Imagination
Imagine if every time we fell asleep we found ourselves in a dream with them. Where we could still be with them, living as though nothing had changed. No fear of falling asleep but rather looking forward to slumber. They still breathe, but only in your dreams. Would it be enough? Recreating their lives, your lives together. Purely with your…
I’m Not Okay
So next week, Im flying to Tampa, Florida, and attending Camp Widow for the 11th or 12th time, I think. I honestly have lost track of how many times I have attended as a presenter and given my comedic talk / performance on grief and loss. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe it’s a bad thing, maybe its just a thing. Who cares. At the end of…
Not gone, Not gone
My husband is not gone from my life. He is not here to regale us with his stories…I must retell them as best I can remember, with little or none of the flair I remember him having. He is not here to sing to us, to dance with his grandchildren, to laugh with his family. But he is still around. I’m in Orlando at Disney World as I begin to…